Atlanta Hawks: Opportunity Strikes For Tim Hardaway Jr.

With the trade of Kyle Korver, a newfound opportunity now awaits for Tim Hardaway Jr., one that could impact his long-term future with the Atlanta Hawks.

As it stands now, arguably no team in the league has the microscope hanging over them quite like the Atlanta Hawks.

On the court, the Hawks are currently rolling as they’re winners of their last seven games, which has helped them get back into the top half of the Eastern Conference. As successful as they’ve been as of late, the real story revolving around the Hawks lies off the court.

Speculation and trade rumors surrounding the team’s best all-around player in Paul Millsap has dominated the discussion in and around the league recently.

In addition to that, we’re only a week removed from the Hawks dealing longtime shooting guard Kyle Korver to the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers.

While the talk regarding Millsap has significantly changed (for now) according to recent reports, the departure of Korver immediately opens up new opportunities for playing time for some of the team’s more inexperienced and unproven players on the wing.

But in the case of Tim Hardaway Jr., there’s more on the line than just potentially earning more minutes.

After being acquired on the night of the 2015 NBA Draft, Hardaway’s first few months in Atlanta last year were a stark turn to his time with the New York Knicks, regularly given DNP-CD’s and even getting some run in the D-League.

Slowly but surely, though, spot minutes turned into regular minutes and before the end of the season last year, Hardaway had fully made his way into head coach Mike Budenholzer’s rotation.

Not only has that continued to be the case this season, but Hardaway has made the most coming off the bench, averaging career highs in both points per game (11.6) and effective field goal percentage (53 percent) as well as shooting 35.3 percent from deep, while playing 22.3 minutes per game.

Hardaway’s impact also extends beyond his own individual numbers.

He currently holds the highest offensive rating of any current Hawk (106.9 points per 100 possessions) and when he’s off the floor, the team’s offense takes a significant slide (98.7 points per 100 possessions), per NBA.com/stats.

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As Hardaway’s starting to live up to his role player potential this year, the stage is being set for an interesting dilemma for the Hawks, for both the coming trade deadline and this offseason.

Being in the final year of his rookie contract, Hardaway’s slated to enter restricted free agency this July after failing to reach an extension with the team earlier in the season.

With bigger priorities and decisions lined up, Hardaway’s long-term future with the Hawks seems to have legitimate question marks, despite his solid season so far.

The question for now is will that be a decision made sooner rather than later. For example, on a recent episode of his podcast, The Lowe Post, Zach Lowe of ESPN.com relayed that the Hawks were “already shopping Hardaway for second-round picks because they don’t want him.”

Whether that line of thinking holds in spite of the team’s recent change of course is unknown at this point, but it certainly drives speculation that he could be had for the right price over the next month.

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How that plays out, though, will get overshadowed if Hardaway keeps up his play for the rest of the year. For now, that’s all he really can control.

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